Some kombucha lovers consider making their own

It's not a surprising question to ask Rudiger Schmidt, owner of Julian's Cliffhouse Kombucha and a well-traveled 25-year-old SCOBY or Mother that allows kombucha to ferment.

"Customs did not know what to do with it," Schmidt says of the SCOBY, and acronym for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. "More than twice I have crossed the border. They left it alone. Maybe it scared them."

Could be. Even kombucha lovers might find the SCOBY, sometimes described as a leathery pancake or calamari-like, a little disturbing.

But it's this mysterious marriage of bacteria and yeast that makes kombucha what it is. For lovers of the lightly fermented tea beverage, believed by some to have healthful properties, it's been a long, dry summer. The beverage was pulled from natural food stores' shelves in mid-June over concerns that the alcohol content in the drinks was slightly higher than the label indicated, perhaps requiring testing and special labeling under federal law.

Kombucha's drinking problem has Schmidt reformulating his product to contain 1/2 percent alcohol -- similar to the level of alcohol in orange juice -- rather than the 11/2 percent that it and many other brands typically contain. Others have decided to brew their own kombucha at home.

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Simple to brew

One such is Christopher Lawrence of Boulder , who read up on the process online and then started brewing his own, using a couple of bottles of unpasteurized commercial kombucha as a starter.

"I brewed some black tea. The proportion is about a gallon (of tea) to a cup of sugar," Lawrence says. "I let it cool down with the sugar in it, and I just dumped the kombucha in there. I put a torn up T-shirt on top and grew a kombucha culture."

He bottled the kombucha in Grolsch-like bottles with stoppers and let it age a bit to allow it to carbonate.

"It's more for the taste than anything," Lawrence says. "But it also feels like I'm doing something good for my body."

Ben Rodman of Lyons has been brewing kombucha for about six or seven years.

"I've always been a home brewer, winemaker and mead maker," says Rodman who once worked at a now-defunct brewing supply store in Lyons. It was there that an employee gave him some kombucha to try. He liked it and started brewing it himself.

Rodman makes his batches five gallons at a time with 5 gallons of water, 3 ounces of organic loose green tea and 3 pounds of sugar. He prepares the tea, dissolving the sugar while the tea is still hot and letting it cool, before introducing the SCOBY. He also takes what he says is a crucial step, saving back about a half gallon of the previous batch of kombucha.

"It lowers the PH (increases the acidity) of the tea, which gives the organism a head start," he says. "I'm a very scientific brewer. I try to work to the optimal (conditions) of the organism I'm culturing."

Rodman suggests adding vinegar to the brew if there is no kombucha left to be added to prevent unwelcome organisms from growing. A high sugar content also prevents unwelcome bacteria, which could be harmful, especially to those with compromised immune systems.

Is kombucha healthy?

Schmidt says he began brewing kombucha after seeing reports in his native Germany showing that drinking the beverage helped cancer patients recover from chemotherapy more quickly.

However, according the American Cancer Society, no published studies have shown a benefit from kombucha, which is often consumed by those wishing to boost their immunity due to its probiotic properties. Some allergic reactions to the tea have been reported, and it should not be brewed ceramic, lead crystal or painted vessels, because of the possibility of lead leaching into brew. In addition, harmful bacteria can grow in the kombucha.

Drinkers of kombucha are also warned not to drink too much, because of the beverage's acidity. In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated two severe illnesses, one of which ended in death, in rural Iowa, related to severe acidosis that appeared to be related to the consumption of kombucha.

Kombucha's return

Schmidt has been working on reducing the alcohol content in his kombucha. He has been bottling the beverage commercially for about 21/2 years. Before that, he home-brewed the stuff, sometimes taking it as a refreshment to PTO meetings at the school in Jamestown, where he lives. The beverage proved so popular that other parents urged him to bottle it. When he went commercial, he took over his son's bedroom, which was built over a garden. Thus, he called the beverage Julian's Cliffhouse Kombucha in honor of his son. Bike riders who sampled the brew at the Mercantile in Jamestown urged Whole Foods to pick up the beverage, which it did about 11/2 years ago.

Now Schmidt is playing with the sugar content and aging time in hopes of reducing the alcohol.

"It's the leftover sugar that gets converted to alcohol," he says. "I'll probably have to start off with less sugar and not do the aging process. It's kind of a drag. That gave it a really nice flavor."

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